


Sleep, To Live Again

by riventhorn



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Grieving, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-24 08:45:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riventhorn/pseuds/riventhorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Percival found him at the shores of the lake just after the sun had gone down.</i> Coda to 5.13.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep, To Live Again

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to gatepromise for the beta and coming up with the title. 
> 
> Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended; no profit is being made from this.

Percival found him at the shores of the lake just after the sun had gone down. He knelt at Merlin’s side. 

“He’s gone.” Merlin’s voice rasped in his throat, and Percival bowed his head. 

“We lost Gwaine, too,” Percival said, and the words were swallowed by the vast, cold agony that had hollowed out Merlin’s heart. 

They gazed out at the island together until the drawing night and thickening mist hid it from view.

Percival laid his hand on Merlin’s arm. “Come back to Camelot with me. We must tell the queen.”

Merlin shook his head and did not move.

After a moment, Percival sighed and stood. He left some food and an aleskin next to Merlin. Soon, the sound of his horse’s hoof beats had faded. A deep silence invaded the land, broken only by a breeze, creeping through the treetops.

Merlin remained still. If he moved, he thought he might shatter, falling apart around the gaping ache in his heart. And then he would have to reassemble the pieces of his being, attempt to patch the rent in his soul, and continue. It seemed a greater burden than any he had yet had to bear.

But his body made its demands known, his stomach growling. At last, grudgingly, he fumbled for a piece of bread. It stuck in his dry throat, and he gulped it down with some ale. 

As though his movement had released them, tears gathered in his eyes and fell, unending and unstoppable. A thousand dear moments returned to him—helping Arthur into a jacket and fiddling with the collar while Arthur complained about having to sit through another council meeting; coming to Arthur’s chambers in the morning and finding him still warm and sleepy, curled under the blankets; pushing wet fingers through Arthur’s damp hair, the steam from the bath flushing Arthur’s face. 

He had long ago stopped wishing for accolades and credit for the magic he had done. And now he saw, more clearly than before, how his role as a servant had granted him a precious closeness with Arthur. To most other eyes, he had been inconsequential, of no importance. He had been Arthur’s completely, and as he had told him in their last hours together, he regretted none of it. 

The tears ended at last, and a great weariness overtook him. He lay on the ground, facing towards the island, and let sleep take him for a brief, blessed time. 

Sun on his face and the rustle of birds in the bracken woke him, and he thought: _This is my first day without you._

*

He lived as he thought Arthur would have wanted him to. He helped the poor and the sick and tended to the land that his king had loved. Over suppers with Gaius and Gwen he raised toasts to past victories. He went shivering out into the dawn with Leon and Percival to hunt for harts—he still disliked rising from his warm bed for such a purpose, but it brought the memories of other days and other hunts closer to him. He never could bring himself to return to Arthur’s old chambers or the green sward outside the castle where Arthur had practiced with his knights. And his magic slumbered, called forth only for the gravest of illnesses when his other talents failed. _I use it for you, Arthur, only for you._

When at last he felt age settle into his bones, he returned to the Crystal Cave and sent himself into a deep sleep. He would know when it was time to awake. 

*

“Did you think I would not be at your side, as I always have been, protecting you?”

A smile and a hand on his brow. “You waited?”

His reply did not need words to be understood. Arthur read it in his eyes and the warm touch of wrinkled fingers grasping the king’s strong ones. 

Arthur smiled again and helped him to stand. “Your hair—it’s so white. You cannot fool me into thinking you unwise now.”

Merlin arched his brows. “Perhaps you will listen to me this time around, then.”

His king laughed, and for a moment he was the youthful prince, full of pride and shining promise. “You know me, Merlin,” he said. “I never listen to you.” 

~Fin~


End file.
